May 17, 2013 in Media Relations, Public Relations by Clay Zeigler
HEADS UP: Scott Baradell to Participate in Media Relations Panel at PRSA Southwest District Conference

Screen shot 2013-05-17 at 1.07.44 PMIdea Grove President Scott Baradell is among the speakers at next month’s 2013 PRSA Southwest District Conference, where he will participate with four other PR professionals in a panel discussion called Tackling Media Relations.

The panel will explore how dramatically newsrooms are changing and how PR practitioners must adapt their strategies to better meet the needs of journalists. Scott will talk about the importance of creating publication-ready content for use by media organizations, in the form of byline articles, infographics,  and more.  He will also discuss how a company can use a single content idea across both its inbound marketing and media relations programs.

Appearing with Scott on the Tackling Media Relations panel will be:

  • Alexis Patterson Hanes, associate director of Public Information for the Austin Community College District
  • Lauren Butler, vice president/group manager at Ketchum
  • Casey Norton, vice president of Media Relations at Weber Shandwick.
  • Sarah Marshall, senior vice president of Phillips & Company, who will moderate.

The conference is sponsored by the Austin chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and takes place June 5-7 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown. The three-day event offers PR professionals everything from sessions on managing a crisis and making an impact to free yoga on the hotel’s roof.

 
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April 18, 2013 in Content Marketing, Marketing, Media Relations, Public Relations by Mike Drago
RANT: Vague Language is the Scourge of Marketing and Public Relations

shutterstock_121137493“We the human capital of the United States, in order to facilitate a cutting-edge, best-of-breed convergence of revenue-generating entities, actualize Justice, insure scalable domestic Tranquility, provide for the interdependent interfacing of defensive capabilities, promote mutually beneficial functionality in the North American market space, and secure the Blessings of harmonized, re-engineered culture to ourselves and our Posterity, do conceptualize and cultivate this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Let us bow our heads and give thanks that Gouverneur Morris, the Founding Father credited with writing the preamble to the United States Constitution, was a far better writer than many of today’s marketers. Otherwise, millions upon millions of children would never have been able to memorize the preamble in grade school – much less understand it – and the Union might never had held together.

A Confession and a Theory

I have a confession: Vague language drives me bonkers. And ever since I made the jump to Internet marketing firms after a long career in newspapers, I have puzzled on this question: Why is so much business writing mind-numbingly obtuse? I developed an armchair theory. Vague language is high art in business because a negotiation is a courtship of adversaries, and ambiguity is necessary to avoid driving off the other party before you have time to draw him in. We marketers have simply gotten lazy and adopted it.

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March 15, 2013 in Media Orchard, Media Relations, Public Relations by Stephanie Fedler
ADVICE: What Makes Your Story News? 3 Tests to Predict Media Interest

shutterstock_105032324Most companies that invest in public relations and marketing services are passionate about their businesses, but that excitement can blur the line between what is newsworthy and what isn’t. As an account manager specializing in technology public relations, I help clients identify which announcements warrant a press release or media pitch – and which don’t – and develop compelling story angles around them. I’ve learned that as excited as you are about your company’s decision to begin targeting a new vertical, that doesn’t necessarily mean the media cares. Three tests will help you determine whether your company’s story belongs in the newsroom or in the break room.

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February 4, 2013 in Media Relations, Public Relations by Scott Baradell
HEADS UP: Why an Outplacement Service Is News Before the Super Bowl

Screen shot 2013-02-04 at 12.57.21 PMI have this thing about challenges; I love them. And I certainly got one in early 2011, when our Dallas marketing firm was asked to find a way to use the Super Bowl to get attention for a client that is an outplacement services company. The campaign we put together is an annual reminder that media relations efforts still are extremely valuable when they convey ideas that are new, timely and interesting.

Sanjay Sathe is the CEO at RiseSmart, which helps get laid-off workers into their next jobs as quickly as possible. He gets the credit for suggesting tying the company to a Super Bowl angle. In thinking about RiseSmart’s role in combating unemployment, we wondered whether there was a correlation between jobless rates and the Super Bowl. Sure enough, we found a study by an economist from the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago that uncovered an unexpectedly strong correlation: In four out of five Super Bowls during the period studied, the victors were from the city whose metropolitan area had the lower unemployment rate.

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December 7, 2012 in Media Relations, Public Relations by Clay Zeigler
ADVICE: Wal-Mart Shows Us How Not to Handle Negative Media Coverage

The mainstream media has been a punching bag for the American public since back when newspapers cost a penny. For more than 200 years, people and organizations of all kinds have found sympathetic audiences for their complaints about unfair news coverage. Still, it’s difficult to understand the thinking behind the recent move by Wal-Mart Stores not to respond to questions from the Huffington Post. The good news for the rest of us is this is a perfect test case for what not to do in the face of negative media coverage.

Mistake No. 1 – Banning a Publication

According to a Washington Post story, Wal-Mart won’t any longer respond to questions to the Huffington Post because of a pattern of problems over facts and perspectives. While there may be issues – perhaps legitimate ones – it doesn’t seem to make sense to deny access to an entire organization all the time.

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